Washington, USA

“The day after Ernest Hemingway committed suicide, there was a cold NW wind hitting the coast at La Push on an Indian reservation up near the border of Canada. However, the surf looked beautiful at about 5-6ft, as a strong side wind feathered the tops of these waves – quite beautiful, but bone-bruising cold. No wetsuit! I was able to stay out close to an hour. Some Indians sat on the beach, and they invited me to their beach fire, which probably saved my life. They also passed around a bottle of red wine, and I thanked them profusely.” A lot has changed in the 40-some years since Hemingway shot himself one Sunday morning in July of 1961. As Fred Van Dyke sat among the Quillayute (or Quileute, as tribal members spell it), he may not have seen another surfer, but, in fact, the pioneer big-wave surfer of California and Hawaii wasn’t the first to surf the Washington coast. With few spots to choose from, Washington surfers are a relatively close-knit tribe, and their tribal history is a closely-held body of knowledge. Its obscurity reflects the general isolation and secrecy of surfing in the far U.S. Northwest. Ray Walters is the generally acknowledged “father of Washington Surfing.” An engineer for Boeing (the state’s largest employer) in the ’50s and ’60s, Walters built up his cold-water tolerance as a marathon swimmer in Puget Sound. Walters was a pal of Dick Wald, who surfed big Seaside in the early ’60s on some bizarre longboard shapes. The gathering place in the 1960s was Point Grenville, where surfing started in Washington State. “The magic of Grenville was in being there,” says a veteran of the early days. “It was more a ‘happening’ than it was ever a good surf spot.” He describes the “powerful Native American spirit” of the place and rues the day the Quinault Tribe closed it to surfing in the spring of 1966 for a short while. George South, a protégé of Ray Walters from Seattle, was especially distraught at the loss of the spot and lobbied strongly for the surfers. Largely through his efforts, the spot was reopened and Washington’s first surf contest was held there on the 4th of July in 1968. The core Washington regulars of that era included Hank Simmons, Tom LeCompte (who started surfing at the Westport jetty in ’66), Mike Friegang, Tom Burns, Darryl Wood (the man at La Push), Lee Evans, Brian Jett, Kent Wienker, Steve Lewis, Dan Norton, and the late Greg Wheaton (a terrific surfer who pioneered Alaska surfing in the late ’70s and ’80s). Arriving on the scene in ’66, Peter de Turk (like several of these guys) was from Southern Cal, a surfer who joined the Naval Air Corps, got posted on Whidbey Island, was a great competitor (the first Oregon champ), and an even better explorer. Times were different, de Turk recalls: “As a California surfer with seven years in the water, I was embraced by the fold, given high status and total access to their world.” South lived in a beach shack, had a milk truck, rented boards, and gave lessons (to tribal kids too) until he headed off to Vietnam in the fall of ’69. Unfortunately, no one else really took care of the place. Lack of sanitation and refuse management hurt the surfers. Painting “Renton High Class of 67” on sacred rocks didn’t help, nor did the tribe appreciate the surfers driving on the clam beds, living on the beach in driftwood huts, and smoking weed. There was drunken debauchery, out-of-control campfires, and when psychedelics hit, the tribe closed it for good – on Labor Day 1969.

“We were all sent packing,” recalls Kent Brummitt. “The Washington diaspora began. That's when we started really exploring. We went north and south. I went to Westport with some of my mates. Ray Walters (now deceased) was our leader, mentor, and guide during those years.”

Prominent surfers of the 1970s included hot California transplants Mark and P.J. Wahl, Randy Harrison, Kenny “Cheetah” Sunde, Lonnie Smart, John Messmer from Aberdeen, and Abner Agee (the state’s informal goodwill surfing ambassador). Then Tom Decker and Bruce Prater came storming onto the scene. Mike Galbraith was the first real shaper in the state; now a famous Seattle architect, he did some innovative stuff back in the ’70s. P.J. shaped too, but the state’s first real surf shop didn’t open until Big Al Perlee opened The Surf Shop in Westport in 1985. A couple of years later, Ricky Young Surfboards opened in posh Bellevue (since sold and renamed Off The Beach), over a hundred miles from the beach. Since then more and more surfers and shops have appeared, including Rob Brown’s Boarding Factory & Jetty Java. Ricky Young’s contests at Westport have been the events of the summer in recent years; he’s gifted a lot of boards and gear to the Quinault kids. A spokesman for the Quinault recreation department said the tribe is considering allowing a semi-annual surf contest at Grenville over the Labor Day weekend in early September.